| From the Richmond Dispatch |
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| December 21, 1864 |
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| The War Footing of railroads |
| The presidents of the
railroads in Virginia
have prepared a statement relative to the expenses of conducting them
at war prices, in which we find some valuable statistics. In the
matter of wages paid to their employees, it appears that an average
advance of eight hundred per cent. on peace rates has been found
necessary, except in negro hire, which has been advanced about four
hundred per cent. In other expenses, the advance has been much
greater; and, in addition to this, the great scarcity of labor, the
high price of oils, tallow, etc., and the daily deterioration of the
machinery, has to be contended with. In the depreciation of their
property from these and similar causes, one of the principal companies
of the State estimate their annual loss at $700,000, and in this do
not include the losses of bridges, machinery and roadway, caused by
the contending armies, which is over $1,000,000. Notwithstanding this
fact, the tolls are only ten times, and the fares only five times,
what they were before the war. Reducing the fare to an article of
indispensable necessity to railroad
companies, it is shown that where a passenger who paid four dollars
before the war and twenty dollars now, might now pay his fare for two
pounds of tallow (or its value in money.) In the matter of the surplus
revenues and the large dividends declared, this pamphlet says that it
is from the impossibility of expending this surplus in making proper
repairs to the roads and stock — the material for repairs not being
in the country — and that all this must inevitably be met by the
stockholders at some future day. The presidents, in view of these
facts, deprecate hostile legislation, State or Confederate, and say: |
| "From these facts, it
follows that unless our railroads are sustained by enlightened and
liberal legislation and action of our public authorities, State and
Confederate, instead of being made, without defence or advocacy, the
object of constant and blind denunciation and of hostile class
legislation, they inevitably must be broken down, and be lost to the
country and to our military operations, for all history and experience
proves that their attempted maintenance and operation by Government
officials will inevitably only hasten, with greatly increased expense,
their final ruin. They are now in the control and management of those
whose personal interest in their maintenance and efficiency is far
greater, and whose justice, liberality and patriotism are certainly no
less than those of any Government officer." |
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